Indian Territory

“ As a number of Indian tribes are still depending, in part at least, upon hunting for their sustenance, their wants must be provided for in another way. They should be gradually gathered together upon a smaller number of reservations where agriculture and cattle-raising can be carried on with success, and where they can easily be supplied with their necessaries until they are self-sustaining.
The Indian Territory has room for most of the southwestern tribes, which should be gradually located there as they come under the control of the government. ”

“ As has been shown the Indian Territory is of sufficient area to locate all the Indians, and give each man, woman, and child among them 180 acres of land. With such an in gathering of the now widely scattered tribes, under an efficient territorial government, and with the nucleus of partially civilized nations and tribes already there, the entire race would be so well in hand and surrounded by such influences as to be more easily managed, thus enabling the Government to work out its humane policy toward them to its legitimate results. ”

“ I commend the recommendation of the Secretary for the extension of the homestead laws to the Indians and for some sort of Territorial government for the Indian Territory. A great majority of the Indians occupying this Territory are believed yet to be incapable of maintaining their rights against the more civilized and enlightened white man. Any Territorial form of government given them, therefore, should protect them in their homes and property for a period of at least twenty years, and before its final adoption should be ratified by a majority of those affected. ”

“ So much of this public territory as fell within the respective State lines, fell, by the terms of our political compact, under State laws, and the jurisdiction of the State courts; and as soon as new tracts of the Indian territory, thus within State boundaries, were acquired, the State laws had an exact corresponding extension until the whole of such Indian lands had been acquired. ”

“ Certain Indian tribes now own certain Indian reservations and the Indian Territory, and this right of property ought to be most sacredly guarded. But it does not, therefore, follow that these Indians, in their present state, ought to control the present use of this property. They may need a long training before they are wise enough to manage rightfully what is nevertheless rightfully their own. ”

“ Indians may go to, but never from that country. Originally intended as an exclusive refuge for the American Indian, where he might learn the ways of civilization and eventually become a part of the national life as an Indian State, the Indian Territory had degenerated into a general dumping-ground for every tribe that in its own home was an obstruction to the grand scheme of national upbuilding. ”

“ The climate of the Indian Territory is congenial to them, while it has proved unwholesome to the northern Indians who were located there. The northwestern tribes will, in the course of time, have to be concentrated in similar manner on a few reservations east of the Rocky Mountains and on the Pacific slope. ”

“ The policy has been to collect the Indians as rapidly as possible on reservations, and as far as practicable within what is known as the Indian Territory, and to teach them the arts of civilization and self-support. Where found off their reservations, and endangering the peace and safety of the whites, they have been punished, and will continue to be for like offenses. ”

“ No one disputes the fact that the population and wealth is large enough to justify the step, and the only question at issue is whether the whole of the Indian Territory should be included in the new State, or whether the lands of the so-called civilized tribes should be excluded. ”

“ I should like—and I express the wish of our people—that every Indian tribe should come here and settle on these lands, that this Territory may become filled up with Indians, to the exclusion of others who may be inimical to our race and interests. We believe our right to our soil and our government, which is best suited to our peculiar necessities, would be safer if all our race were united together here. ”

“ The sooner the idea of considering and treating the various tribes in the Indian Territory as possessing a sort of independent power and nationality is done away with, the earlier will we reach some practical solution of the embarrassments which now surround the question of their government. ”

“ All subsistence and supplies which may be hereafter provided, are to be delivered on or near the Missouri River. A delegation of chiefs and leading men from each band shall visit the Indian Territory, with a view to selecting therein a permanent home for the Indians. If such delegation shall make a selection satisfactory to the Indians they represent and to the United States, then the Indians are to remove to the selected country within one year, select allotments as soon as possible afterwards, and use their best efforts to cultivate the same. ”

“ Regarding the Indian Territory, as they do, though with no sufficient reason, as the graveyard of their race, there is ground for apprehension that, if the project be too suddenly sprung upon them, or pressed too far, the repugnance of some of these tribes may culminate in outbreaks like those with which the Black Hawk and Seminole wars commenced. ”

“ The five tribes longest settled in the Indian Territory, now called civilized, number about 60,000 souls. More than half of these can read. All wear citizens’ dress. They have a school-house for every 312, and a church-building for every 458 inhabitants. During the past year, they cultivated more than 22 acres of land for each family of five persons, raised more than 263 bushels of grain and vegetables, and owned five and one-sixth horses or mules for each family. ”

“ The white population of the Territory, who outnumber the Indians six to one, found themselves without a voice in the government, unable to secure such privileges as look toward their proper protection and development. ”

“ Doctor, “is in all respects a country to be desired by Indians. It is a mild climate—the land is good, the forests full of game, and the lakes and rivers abounding with fish. The region itself is not only remote from the territories claimed by the individual States; but it is in the exclusive occupancy of Indian tribes, and destined in the plan of the national government for that purpose. Besides, it is vast, and not only sufficient for the tribes already there, but more than sufficient for all your purposes and theirs. ”

“ A territory exceeding in extent that relinquished has been granted to each tribe. Of its climate, fertility, and capacity to support an Indian population, the representations are highly favorable. To these districts the Indians are removed at the expense of the United States ”

“ Railroad enterprises, mining enterprises, and land enterprises of every name, will find any scheme that shall be seriously proposed to be quite the most objectionable of all that could be offered: every State, and every Territory that aspires to become a State, will strive to keep the Indians as far as possible from its own borders ”

“ The white man, with his intellectual energy, far-reaching science, and indomitable perseverance, is the peculiar object of my sympathy, and should receive the especial protection and support of government. In this territory there are numerous "Indian reserves," of magnificent extent and choice fertility, capable of sustaining a dense civilized population, now held unimproved by numerous Indian tribes. These tribes are governed by Indian agents, entirely independent of the executive of this territory, and are, indeed, governments within a government. ”

“ The resisting Indian is sometimes conciliated, sometimes disregarded. In 1893 a commission to the ‘Five Civilized Nations,’ the Dawes Commission, was appointed to enter into negotiations with the Indians in the Territory for the allotment of their lands in severalty, or to procure a cession of their lands to the United States. ”

“ It is proper here to observe, that the government of the United States have ever been accustomed to recognise in principle and in form the right of the Indian tribes over the territories, of which they are found in actual possession and use. ”

“ The easiest way to secure that Territory to its present occupants and protect it from the encroachments of white settlement, is to people it by other Indians, and, giving them all in severalty sufficient land for each to cultivate and take care of, prohibit any transfer to a white man, and only from one Indian to another under great restriction. ”

“ All these Indians have horses and cattle in abundance. They are industrious; and, being good field-hands, those of them who do not farm on their own account find ready employment from the surrounding farmers, their services always [Pg 254] commanding the highest wages. Having no treaty relations with the government, no direct appropriations are made for their benefit. They, however, receive some assistance from the general incidental fund of the Territory. The Indians herein referred to as not living upon the reservation are of the Cowlitz, Chinook, Shoalwater Bay, and Humboldt tribes. ”

“ The Proclamation announced the intention of the English Government to take exclusive control of Indian relations and Western settlement. "For the present," all territory west of the Alleghanies, from the new provinces of Florida on the south to Canada on the north, was to be "reserved to the Indians." Governors were forbidden to grant land there. Those who had already settled within reserved territory were required to remove forthwith; and every Indian trader was bound to give security for observing such rules as the Imperial Government might establish. ”

“ And next,—The door is completely open in the Canadas for the incorporation of the Indians in all the rights and immunities of citizenship;—whereas in the States they are proscribed by law—at least by custom, which amounts to the same thing. In the Canadas an Indian may rise to any office, and to any civil dignity, 179 according to his merit and his influence. And in the records of their parliaments may be found at least the name of one Indian, admitted to their deliberations, and to the supreme rights of legislation. ”

“ The number of their Indians is much less, and their unoccupied territory much larger. They have still what may be called an Indian frontier—the white men on one side of the line and the Indians on the other, with vast hunting-grounds visited only by the trapper and fur-trader. Their agricultural settlements advance with far less rapidity than ours. There is far less opportunity for encroachment. ”

“ The reports of the Secretary of the Interior and of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, setting forth the present state of our relations with the Indian tribes on our territory, the measures taken to advance their civilization and prosperity, and the progress already achieved by them, will be found of more than ordinary interest. The general conduct of our Indian population has been so satisfactory that the occurrence of two disturbances, which resulted in bloodshed and destruction of property, is all the more to be lamented. ”

“ That upon the transference of the territories in question to the Canadian Government it will be our duty to make adequate provision for the protection of the Indian tribes whose interests and well­-being are involved in the transfer, and we authorize and empower the Governor in Council to arrange any details that may be necessary to carry out the terms and conditions of the above agreement. ”

“ This condition had an important bearing on the position of British Indians in the territory. It prevented any discrimination being made against them, as had been done in the neighbouring colony of Kenya. A proposal had been made during the World War that the territory should become, in effect, a reserve for India. This proposal could not be adopted, but in Aug. 1919 the Colonial Office consulted the Indian Government as to the desirability of setting aside special areas for colonization by Indians. ”

“ It is my purpose to protect the rights of the Indian inhabitants of that Territory to the full extent of the executive power; but it would be unwise to ignore the fact that a territory so large and so fertile, with a population so sparse and with so great a wealth of unused resources, will be found more exposed to the repetition of such attempts as happened this year when the surrounding States are more densely settled and the westward movement of our population looks still more eagerly for fresh lands to occupy. ”

“ I think that a census of the numbers of these should be procured, and while I would not be disposed to recommend their being brought under the treaties, I would suggest that land should be assigned to them, and that on their settling down, if after an examination into their circumstances, it should be found necessary and expedient, some assistance should be given them to enable them to enter upon agricultural operations."
FUTURE OF THE INDIANS
And now I come, to a very important question, What is to be the future of the Indian population of the North-West? I believe it to be a hopeful one. ”

“ And here I may state, parenthetically, that we have not been fighting, really speaking, with regard to the position of the Indians in the Colony, but we have been simply fighting for the principle. The object of our agitation is not to swamp the Colony with Indians or to have the status of the Indian in the Colony of Natal defined, but to have the Imperial question decided once for all, namely: ‘What status will the Indians outside British India have?’ That was the principle we have been striving to determine. ”